Russian Music

This is a striking, and very well-recorded pair of performances, well worth the attention of lovers of Russian music who have not yet encountered the works.

Still today, no-one really knows who Leonid Polovinkin was. It is thus a real discovery that Anait Karpova, soloist at the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and direct descendant of his companion in life Natalia Stats, proposes us. The extraordinary colour's range of Polovinkin, from innocent joy until dark anxiety, will charm all piano and Russian music lovers.

Both Anton Arensky and Sergey Taneyev belong to the generation of Russian composers who came to prominence at the end of the 19th century, midway between Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. With its expansive themes and wonderfully elegiac mood, Arensky’s Piano Trio No. 1 is dedicated to the memory of cellist Karl Davydov. The subtle use of counterpoint in Taneyev’s Piano Trio in D major reveals his expertise in combining earlier techniques with the emphatically Romantic style that both composers inherited from Tchaikovsky. These two masterpieces summarize the development of the piano trio genre in Russian music of the 19thcentury, and subsequently laid the foundations for its further evolution.

The polyphonic choral concerto performed a cappella first appeared in Russian music at the beginning of the 18th century. Sacred in origin, it began as a multimovement setting of liturgical texts. Although it later became more secular in character, it nonetheless retained an elevated nature thanks to its use of Christian imagery. Most of the composers who worked in this genre were choirmasters and conductors, and inherited the traditions of the oldest professional choirs in Russia: the Moscow Synodal Choir and the Saint Petersburg Court Chapel.

The polyphonic choral concerto performed a cappella first appeared in Russian music at the beginning of the 18th century. Sacred in origin, it began as a multimovement setting of liturgical texts. Although it later became more secular in character, it nonetheless retained an elevated nature thanks to its use of Christian imagery. Most of the composers who worked in this genre were choirmasters and conductors, and inherited the traditions of the oldest professional choirs in Russia: the Moscow Synodal Choir and the Saint Petersburg Court Chapel.